Fwd: Re: [NGC4LIB] An article to warm the hearts of cataloguers

> On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:01:16 -0500, … wrote:>> >I think: maybe OCLC shouldn’t have given them everything (out of chips).>> There is a big part of me that agrees with Nathan: that this is *our* stuff> that we shouldn’t just be giving away. After all, it was made with the> blood, sweat and tears of generations of experienced catalogers and is> incredibly valuable. Simply giving it away seems crazy.>> I think this is the way that the music industry is looking at a similar> situation, the book industry, the film industry, the newspaper industry, as> well as the “scholarly-production complex.” All are in a state of> crisis. We> have all of this “stuff” built up with such labor over such a long> time and> somebody ought to have to pay for it. If we just give it away, it’s> equivalent to saying that it’s not worth anything at all, or if it is worth> something, then someone else who uses it and profits from us should give us> a piece of the action.>> But it’s a new world, whether we like it or not. The music industry doesn’t> want to admit that they have lost control over all kinds of things and so> they sue people in outrageous ways, but it doesn’t stop anything at all. For> a current example, see the Tenenbaum case:> http://ars> technica.c> om/tech-po> licy/news/2009/09/riaa-continues-to-squeeze-tenenbaum-wants-injunction.ars>> Whether we agree with the music industry or not in this case, it seems as if> the old system can only be continued by threatening to throw people in jail> or threatening to impoverish them. And even then it won’t stop it. To me,> the case of Tenenbaum and the consequences is precisely the same as the> Catholic Church’s attempts to control publishing through coercive methods> and use of their “Index of Forbidden Books.” The only people who were> punished were those unfortunates who happened to be in their jurisdiction,> and they were tortured and/or burned at the stake. But for *everyone else,*> it was relatively free and open, like in Holland or Britain or Germany. And> some printers used the “Index” as their guide for what to publish,> something> the Church thought was especially perverse. Of course, we see now that many> of the main advances in human thought at this time came from outside Church> lands.>> This is the situation we have now. Everyone understands that if you are on> the web, you must be findable in Google or you will die. That’s why “page> rank” is so important and why companies pay so much to improve it. I submit> that if we want to remain relevant, our cataloging information *must be> used* in Google Books when the full-text becomes available. Do we really> think that the majority of people will *not* use the Google Books interface> but will prefer ours instead, where they will, by definition, get only a> subset of the materials available to them. This is a moment of crisis for> the catalog, itself. I think it must evolve into something bigger than ever> before.>> To be honest, if Google decides to give money to OCLC or not is completely> irrelevant to me. I’m sure my library won’t see any of it, and I don’t think> any of us will profit from it personally, but it might help OCLC. Big whoop!>> But then push comes to shove, and our catalog records must be made useful in> the Google environment — somehow. This is something that we haven’t been> able to do ourselves in our current library catalogs where we had some kind> of control. In that sense, Google will have complete control of it. What> will they come up with? I don’t have the slightest idea.>> Oh yeah, there’s lots of other metadata in there too, like the Armenian,> Brazilian etc. that the Google fellow discussed. Will our “better”> metadata> simply override theirs? When? And how will it all mash together?>> I can’t escape the feeling that in a couple of hundred years when people> look back at this time of transition, they’ll find it rather amusing that we> continue to try and try to force these new resources and methods into our> old forms instead of focusing on how to take advantage of the new.>> A few thoughts,> Jim Weinheimer